With the emergence of Jurickson Profar, the Rangers may be in a position to improve the line-up or pitching staff via trade of Elvis Andrus, Ian Kinsler or Nelson Cruz (would require Kins to move to RF). Expect rumors to run rampant this off-season and potentially into next season, primarily related to Andrus and Kinsler.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe writes:

“Rays pitcher James Shields has a $9MM option for this year and will likely be unaffordable for the club after that. It seems likely that Tampa Bay will finally bite the bullet and trade pitching to get the offense that they need. One National League GM suggested that the Rangers would be a good partner as they could offer Elvis Andrusand someone else for Shields. Some baseball officials also haven’t ruled out the Rays moving David Price to fill a couple of positions.”

Would you deal Elvis for Shields? Would you up the ante if we’re talking about Price?

A few things to note:

Elvis, 24, is currently under contract through 2014, making $4.8M in 2013 and $6.5M in 2014.

Shields, age 30, is under contract through 2014- both 2013 and 2014 are team options at $9M and $12M respectively.

Price, age 27, will be arbitration eligible, but isn’t eligible for free agency until 2016. Won’t be cheap, but could be under control and would more than likely prefer to just work out a long-term deal rather than deal with arbitration over the next 3 off-seasons.

So, what do you think? Would you swap Elvis for Shields and hand over full-time SS responsibilities to Profar? Would you up the ante (Buckel & Perez) along with Elvis if you could get David Price in return?

Vote on the poll and sound off in the comments section!

Elvis is being mentioned as a potential trade chip to Tampa for pitching. What would you do?